Prime Minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina yesterday said the government would introduce latest technology to modernise the agriculture sector and increase the storage capacity of food to ensure food security of the country.

The government is actively considering formulation of the National Child Labour Policy to eliminate child labour -- especially hazardous labour -- from the country, State Minister for Labour and Employment Monnujan Sufian said yesterday.

A division bench of the High Court yesterday delivered split orders on five petitions filed by former Awami League (AL) lawmaker Joynal Abedin Hazari against convictions handed down to him by trial courts.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid yesterday said in parliament that a process is underway to form a judicial enquiry committee to detect graft occurred in the education sector during the past four-party alliance regime.

Israel launched a new crackdown on Hamas yesterday, rounding up top leaders in the West Bank after the failure of efforts to secure the release of a soldier held by the Islamist rulers of the Gaza Strip.

The Government of Afghanistan has reportedly opened preliminary negotiations with the country's most dangerous rebel faction, the al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, which has been accused of masterminding some of the most brazen attacks in recent years.

In our yesterday's report headlined "27-member taskforce to watch fallout" we inadvertently mentioned M Syeduzzaman as chairman of Bank Asia. Actually, he is a former chairman of the bank. We regret the mistake. In fact, the finance ministry circular on the committee mentioned him as Bank Asia chairman.

Editorial

WE will begin at the beginning. Two per cent of Bangladesh's GDP growth is swallowed up by corruption. That is a distinctly uncomfortable sign of how the objective of a promotion of public welfare is all too easily and regularly defeated. And now comes the revelation, per courtesy of a roundtable in the city the other day, that of the thousand audit reports prepared and submitted to the Jatiya Sangsad since 1973, only 300 have been discussed by the Public Accounts Committee of parliament in all these years. Incredible as it may sound, the fact remains that the revelation shows up an image of the abysmal failure of institutional bodies where dealing with public concerns is the issue.

THIS is a major worker-friendly and pro-poor undertaking the government has decided to embark on from the upcoming historic May Day. The labour and employment minister has announced a plan, albeit in broad outlines, aiming to feed as many as three million readymade garment workers at a subsidised price of Tk18 per kg of rice. Each worker will be entitled to buying 20kgs of rice per month.

WHEN the story initially broke on the morning of February 25 of the siege at BDR headquarters there was instant reaction among a considerable segment of the commentariat (and among significant sections of the general public as well) of qualified support for the mutineers and of solidarity with their ostensible cause.

BERNARD Madoff is an American businessman who made off with other people's money. He operated the largest investor fraud ever committed by a single person, defrauding 4,800 clients of $65 billion. At 71, he faces spending the rest of his life in prison and could be forced to pay $170 billion in restitution. Different people inhabit different worlds. In this country, Madoff would have been worshipped as an icon of inspiration, a role model for the rich.

An Englishman came to the rescue of French giants Marseille's UEFA Cup campaign on Wednesday as the journeyman defender Tyrone Mears scored a goal in extra-time to see them to a 2-2 draw on the night but a 4-3 aggregate success over Dutch side Ajax and a place in the quarterfinals.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson does not believe his team will win an unprecedented five major trophies this season - even though he reckons the current squad is the best he's had during more than two decades at Old Trafford.

India made it to the third-place playoff after an eight-wicket win over West Indies in the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup at the Bankstown Oval on Thursday. The Indian spinners, led by Priyanka Roy's career-best 4 for 14, did well again, taking six wickets between them as West Indies were bowled out for 84. It took India only 17.5 overs to chase down the paltry total.

Business

The government plans to offload shares of Pan Pacific Sonargaon and Dhaka Sheraton hotels on the stock market to incorporate common people in these two five-star hotels, Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister GM Quader said yesterday.

The Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL) yesterday signed a Tk 280 crore deal with South Korea's KT Corporation to install the latest internet backbone in a bid to provide high-speed broadband services.

The unilateral decision by Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) of fixing Tk5 lakh as yearly licence fee for running captive power plants has fuelled anger among businessmen amid frequent outages in their industrial units as production cost will shoot up in such a situation.

Labour, Employment and Expatriate Welfare Minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain yesterday said the government would soon formulate a policy for manpower export to make the entire process transparent and hassle-free.

As the whole world is experiencing an extraordinary time, many words are flying in the air. Be it 'financial turmoil', 'financial tsunami', 'credit crisis' or 'liquidity crunch', impacts of this crisis are intensifying rapidly and apparently, no concrete solution is in sight.

Industries Minister Dilip Barua yesterday rejected the allegation of the Delegation of the European Commission to Bangladesh that the existing rules and regulations of the country are not enough to maintain global quality standards for its export products.

National Housing Finance and Investments Ltd has recently elected Mizanur Rahman and Md Kabir Reza as chairmen of the company's Executive Committee and Audit Committee respectively, according to a press release.

FedEx said Thursday its fiscal third-quarter profit tumbled 75 percent as severe weakness in the global economy offset the benefit of lower fuel prices. The company said it will eliminate more jobs and make other cutbacks to deal with the ongoing economic slowdown.

Speakers at a roundtable yesterday said the most important role the media plays is the watchdog role and so the journalists should be allowed to work without any political and economic pressure or harassment of any type.

The authorities of a private medical college and hospital have been constructing a six-storey building close to Maghbazar Ispahani Colony in the city in violation of building construction rules, causing suffering to the colony residents.

Speakers at a roundtable yesterday underlined the importance of reforming education sector, fighting against fanatic forces and ensuring accountability and transparency in governance to make Digital Bangladesh.

A fire drill was conducted at the Secretariat yesterday, the government's administrative headquarters, to familiarise the staffs with emergency procedures so that they can respond quickly in case of any fire incident.

Investigators took two former top officials of Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited (CUFL) on a three-day remand for interrogation yesterday in connection with the sensational 10 truckloads of arms haul case.

Eight SSC examinees affected during the BDR mutiny appeared at their mathematics exam at Government Laboratory School in the city yesterday, while the four education institutions inside Pilkhana will not be reopened until the ongoing investigations are completed.

Jamaat leader Barrister Abdur Razzaq yesterday filed a contempt petition with the High Court (HC) against the authorities concerned of the government for preventing him from going to Malaysia and Singapore in spite of having an HC order allowing him to visit the two countries.

The 27th founding anniversary programmes of Retired Armed Forces' Welfare Association (RAOWA), scheduled to be held on March 21, have been cancelled due to the brutal killings at the BDR headquarters at Pilkhana, says a press release.

Letters

We are much worried to see the recent instability in the educational institutions all over Bangladesh. Clashes are not only between the student bodies of political parties but also within the same factions of political wings. These pictures are not new. With the change of regime student bodies of the ruling party start creating anarchy in the educational institutions.

If anybody says rickshaw is the most powerful and fastest vehicle in Dhaka, nobody will disagree. It is so powerful that it can stop any motorized vehicle inside the road by its changing of direction as per its will. It pays little attention while changing courses disregarding other vehicles. As it does not need any fuel it runs by manual power which seems to be very judiciously applied by its puller. Once the rickshaw attains a high speed its puller is reluctant to lower down the speed by its hand brake, lest the rickshaw would require further manual pressure by the puller totally disregarding other motorized vehicles speeding fast. This type of mad race by rickshaws with motorized vehicles sometimes poses a great threat to pullers themselves. Their wanton violation of traffic rules puts extra pressure on law enforcers maintaining traffic, especially at the road intersections, pedestrians, and also on the users of other vehicles. Their free style driving of rickshaws demonstrates their intention of realizing good penalty from the users of motorized vehicles for any damage or injury due to collision with motorized vehicles. So the users of motorized vehicles are always scared of the rickshaws.

I admit because of the advancement of newer technologies, our young generation's taste of music has changed dramatically over the years. Moreover, we have now quite a few good number of musicians in our country who are capable of composing songs using all the latest software and instruments. The albums by these composers are selling like hotcakes as our young generations find them very interesting. Since they have huge fan following, these composers do not dare to come in front of the microphone and give voices as well since they do not have the melodious voice which is required for a singer. They use auto tuner and all the other technologies to overcome their limitations and all the other shortcomings. But I feel in this process, we the listeners are the losers and these composers are becoming the so-called famous singers. I think these composers are cheating us. Although they have better knowledge in music than we the general listeners have, that does not necessarily mean that they have the right to cheat us in this way. They are receiving appreciation and earning money which they do not deserve. When these composers sing on any live event, they get exposed. Since they do not have basic training in singing, how could we expect them to perform on live shows? I think it's high time for us to realise this. We have many talented singers in our country who have melodious voice but we treat them badly. We should treat singers by their voice.

I'm talking about the traffic system of Bangladesh and now in the modern world where every day researchers wake up with new innovations to save the valuable time of people. But Bangladesh has no headache about the traffic system. The roads are deplorable and the signal light are just for show as many of them don't work and in most of the places the traffic sergeant controls the system manually. Of course, the entire fault is not of the government, bus drivers and others often aggravate the situation. Even the car owners park their cars in the road. Restaurants, shopping malls, hospitals etc have no parking places.

As mentioned in the DS editorial of 9 March under the above heading, the media also printed the similar wordings of Begum Zia on the BDR carnage. The prime minister may have misquoted her for her political rivalry, but the media men not her rival politicians who have heard her saying, “the killers of BDR officers were foreign spies and were hired from outside.” Did the media then lie to the readers?

There is no denying that the global economic crisis has hit the whole world hard. The USA, being a leading country controlling world economy, has been affected severely by the crisis, which has given birth to global joblessness. Every day we find the news of many organisations limiting their activities, leading to job loss.

The vocal members of the said Samaj are back on TV screen again. Initially they would confine themselves to empowerment of local government, a good subject for long debate, and then gradually enter into the mainstream politics including the BDR carnage.

Discrimination against women is a common thing in Bangladesh. For this reason women are deprived of their fundamental rights, and they are not aware of their rights also. They are directly affected by dowry.

The only information on the action or lack thereof regarding the Feb 25 incident has come from the press alone. To date, the government does not deem it necessary to provide regular briefings outside of self-serving prepared press releases. The recent news item “BDR HQ hardly cordoned off” stands as glaring testament to a shameful and careless reflection of compounded failure of the chain of command by the so-called “authority”. It permeates its inescapable lack of comprehension of the seriousness of the events on the ground. The best explanations they can muster up is that their respective departments “were working under the directives”. Might we ask what these directives were?

Recently, we lost so many talented military officials. These officers were most valuable assets of our country. They had done their best at every crucial moment. But we could do nothing when scores of army officers were killed in the most inhuman way.

British Council is a centre of excellence for learning English. It offers for its members basically three facilities-- Internet browsing at cyber zone, English listening at resource centre & book reading & borrowing for three weeks in library. Hence, three kinds of membership-- general membership, open learning membership & family membership. Three months ago it had 28 computers in its cyber zone. At present only 20 computers are available. Members can use 18. So sometimes we see a queue for browsing Internet, we have to wait for 5 to 15 minutes. The situation was not like this three weeks ago. Because then computers were available.

A few years back I visited Chennai for some medical treatment. One afternoon when we had no work with the hospital, we visited a shopping mall. We had enough time that afternoon and were looking leisurely at different shops. At one stage we were about to enter a big mall and noticed an elderly security officer with plenty of medals on his uniform. I had a closer look on those, which the security officer noticed. He very politely asked me what I was looking for. I enquired about those medals. He then very proudly told me that he acquired those for his outstanding bravery in the liberation war of Bangladesh. I was very curious and asked him where he was posted during the war of liberation in Bangladesh in 1971. He vividly narrated that his troops had a fierce fight in Brahmanbaria, Kasba & Ashuganj. I was extremely moved by his words. I told him that I was from Bangladesh. I belong to Brahmanbaria. To my surprise, the security officer instantly saluted me.

Though it is not recommended to begin anything with a negative statement, but to call spade a spade, we are worried about our nation's immediate future. Yes, it is true that we had always been worried about many aspects of our national affairs since its independence: politics, governance, unemployment, price hike, education system, health facility, traffic jam, corruption and, lately terrorism. But, now we are witnessing an entirely different type of challenge.

Smarting from his capitulation to a lawyers' protest, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari now seems to be training his guns on Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, the man who emerged stronger with his deft handling of a crisis that had threatened to spin out of control.

For once, both Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and his predecessor seem to be in the same boat, spending sleepless nights over the reinstatement Saturday of sacked Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury.

There are no permanent enemies in politics. In what could be the return of the prodigal daughter, expelled BJP leader Uma Bharati is leaving no stone unturned to cosy up to BJP's prime ministerial candidate, LK Advani.

A high level probe into the security lapse during the terror attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team has revealed that all three Superintendents of Police (SP) who were entrusted to look after the security arrangements during the Lankan convoy's movement didn't reported on duty on the day the attack took place, and were in their residences.

The Central Election Commission (CEC) has asked district electoral officers across Gujarat to conduct a vulnerability analysis of religious minorities, tribals, backward classes and economically weak sections to prevent them from being threatened by political parties during the Lok Sabha polls, an official said on Thursday.

Pakistan's presidency today refuted media reports about a purported rift between President Asif Ali Zardari and his sister-in-law Sanam Bhutto, saying they were intended to damage the Bhutto family and cause a split in the ruling Pakistan People's Party.

Arts & Entertainment

Starting her journey on the glamour-laden track to stardom through Lux-Channel i Superstar 2006 -- where she secured the first runners up position, Afsana Ara Bindu has won the hearts of many within a brief period. After making a breakthrough, as a model and an actress on both big and small screen, Bindu has decided to concentrate on the silver screen. The ingénue is poised to emerge as a professional actress in Dhallywood movies.

Organised by Bandhu Social Welfare Society (BSWS), a special screening of “Reflection” -- a documentary on MSM (men having sex with men) and transgender individuals exposed to the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS -- was held at the German Cultural Centre on March 17. Directed by Anisul Islam Hero, Chairperson of BSWS and also a noted dancer, the documentary has been produced with the support of UNAIDS Bangladesh. Socially stigmatised and isolated from the mainstream, these two communities are among the most marginalised ones -- extremely vulnerable to several sexually transmitted diseases.

The grand finale of recently ended beauty pageant "Style Icon '08" will be aired tonight at 8pm on ATN Bangla. The finale was held at Fantasy Kingdom on March 13 and was supposed to be aired live on ATN Bangla.

Twenty-five-year-old Indian cinema sensation and former Miss World, Priyanka Chopra will receive the Nielsen Box Office Award. The award, which is given for outstanding contribution to Asian cinema, will be presented to Priyanka by The Hollywood Reporter during the 3rd Annual Asian Film Awards on March 23.

OP-ED

There is a consensus among all leading economists and major international organisations that the world economy is in serious turmoil. However, there seems to be some degree of uncertainty about the effects on developing countries. Bangladesh's leading economists and business leaders are holding different views -- but no one is expecting huge fallout.

StarTech

Today, the major source of light in most of our apartments and offices, like it or not, constitutes of artificial lights and not natural lights! And it is no secret that artificial light affects us in subtle ways; at its best, ambient lighting can relax, soothe or excite, but used poorly it can drain us of energy and disrupt sleep. Ever thought about a lighting system that could adapt automatically to meet our individual needs?

Prize Giving Ceremony of a mobile-based contest 'Valentine's Dhamaka 2009' was held at the Lakeshore Hotel in the capital on March 12. HottDhaka.com (owned by hottMedia Ltd) and Communication-2 (C2) organised the contest.